Happy Parking Day

Yesterday was Parking Day, "an annual, one-day, global event where artists, activists, and citizens independently but simultaneously temporarily transform metered parking spots into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public parks." I get the feeling there were fewer people doing it this year, but I did find a few near my office.
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San Francisco Elections

So there's an election in San Francisco tomorrow, and they're expecting record-low turnout. There are secondary reasons contributing to this (among them: a law banning signs from utility poles), but it's really the election itself that has people worked up into a frenzy of apathy. There's no credible challenger for Mayor Newsom. The District Attorney is running unopposed. Most of the ballot measures are strictly snoresville.

That's not to say you can stay home. There are two propositions that matter, and they matter a lot:

• Proposition H would mandate thousands of new (private) parking spaces at the expense of transit, trees, and on-street parking. San Francisco has long been one of the nation's most public transit-friendly cities, but Proposition H would go a long way toward reversing that. Kvatch wrote about this in August, and his post title sums up the choice: do we want to be Paris or Los Angeles? Anyone who has seen downtown San Francisco during rush hour knows that the streets can't accommodate all these cars (Republican) Don Fisher wants to create parking spaces for. Vote no on Proposition H.


• Proposition A would earmark more parking revenue for Muni, give the Metropolitan Transit Authority more control, and confirm limits on parking. If Proposition A passes, Proposition H is nullified even if it gets more votes (it's complicated). It's another step forward for our transit-first policy--not the ultimate fix for Muni, but it moves us in the right direction.

In a low-turnout election, the conservative business interests win. The only way Proposition H could pass is if a lot of good people sit the whole thing out. Don't let that happen.

National Parking Day

Catherine reminded me that today was National Parking Day, "an opportunity to transform public parking spaces into parks and open spaces - places for people to enjoy." So I checked the map to see what parks there were near my office, and set out on my lunch hour to get pictures. Above is Dune Scrub Community Park, an oasis of San Francisco native plants by McCall Design Group.



Here I'm lounging in a comfy chair in the Living Room, courtesy of Field Paoli.

The execution is whimsical, but the intent is serious: to highlight the need for public open space, and the loss of same to automobile-dedicated space.

Update: d accuses me of selling out. I don't know...he might just have a point.

Paris or Los Angeles?

The battle's on my San Franciscan friends, and the Chronicle has identified precisely what's at stake. We're going to get a chance to decide what kind of city we want to be because two upcoming ballot measures are directly in conflict with each other.

First the initiatives: On the one hand we've got billionaire and GAP founder, Don Fisher assisted by bunches of merchants groups who want to stuff more cars into our city by relaxing the rules on the creation of off-street parking. On the other hand we've got SF Board of Supervisors President, Aaron Peskin and the liberals who want to provide additional funding for MUNI (our municipal transit system). But here's the problem, the MUNI initiative also reaffirms our current parking restrictions. So we can't have it both ways.

Now for some numbers: This city has approximately 470,000 vehicles registered to it's 820,000 inhabitants. That's low by American standards, but what isn't low is the fact that it translates to almost 10,000 vehicles packed into every one of our 49 square miles. On top of that, on any weekday another 35K cars are driven into San Francisco.

Now the merchants will tell you that this shouldn't be a "transit only city", but they're wrong. If there is any city in America that should be transit only (or at least very, very transit-friendly) it's San Francisco! Do we want more downtown congestion? No! Do we want more pollution? No! Do we want more frustrated cagers clogging up our transit lanes, maiming our pedestrians, bicyclists, and each other? NO!!!

In short people, San Francisco should remain a transit first city because we simply don't have the square mileage to be another Los Angeles, and really...who needs another LA anyway?